Our pal Chad at Cake or Death? has an interesting post today about plans at the Rikers Island prison to replace its “gay dorm” with a new “system that will protect any inmate who feels threatened.” While a number of left-wing groups, two of them gay, protested, this seems like a good plan to me. I always thought that the goal of the gay and lesbian movement should be to integrate us into society rather than create separate institutions where we would live apart from our straight peers.

Provided that the safety concerns of gay and lesbian inmates are met, shouldn’t prisons treat gay and lesbian convicts the same as straight prisoners? The Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, the New York Civil Liberties Union and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force think otherwise. These groups have written Department of Correction Commissioner Martin Horn asking him to “reconsider” his plan to shut down the prison’s dormitory for gay and transgender prisoners.

If some gay and lesbian people really do want to live in their separate enclaves, they should, of course, be allowed to do so. But, before breaking the law, these inmates should have considered that their behavior would likely deprive them of that option.

Now that I’ve whet your appetite, make sure you read Chad’s post for his take on the matter and a taste of his wit and wisdom.

Check out this op-ed today on GayWired.com titled “Corporate America – The Unlikely Gay Ally”. In spite of the puzzling title, read the piece and you’ll find what I and many other gay conservatives have been saying for years: Gays are a market force.

With higher disposable income, more free time to spend it, and a disposition towards leisure, Gay America (as it were) is a fertile market. Businesses are smart, and they see this. While Lazin reaches some bizarre conclusions (about, for example, how conservatives “find themselves up against core American values”), and throws out the typical red meat to the “community” (“equality” and “fairness” twaddle), the structure of what he’s saying has been sound for a long time. However, it’s a naive ‘mo who is just now realizing this. Witness the thriving of gay-themed businesses and abundance of gay publications. Business has known for a long time how much power we have, and it appears some are taken aback by this.

Why? Why title Lazin’s op-ed “Unlikely”? For conservatives and capitalists, this is a no-brainer, a dog-bites-man scenario, hardly even worth mentioning. Characterizing Corporate America’s hospitality toward homosexuals as “unlikely” bespeaks either a victim mentality prevalent in the gay community or a lack of familiarity with the fundamentals of capitalism. Both of these explanations make sense of course. I’d suggest it’s the “community’s” whorish relationship with the American Left (or vice-versa) that brings such shock to its “leaders” when they realize how much power we actually have.